Blood Traitor
by Aarg
Summary: Walburga reflects on what happened to Sirius as she stares at the family tree of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.


Blood Traitor

He had always been that way, Walburga thought to herself as she stared at a name at the bottom of the tapestry of the family tree. But no longer. She had only one son now. The other was a blood traitor - he had always been a mudblood-loving, ungrateful, little blood traitor.

He had been a disappointment from birth. She had never wanted children, but pride had gotten the best of her when she thought of silly Druella whose daughters, though talented, carried far too much Rosier blood for her liking. How could she allow a half-Rosier to inherit the House of her forefathers when she herself could provide purer offspring? And so, Walburga made the greatest sacrifice she was capable of and along came a baby boy whom she named Sirius, because he would shine brighter than them all.

They would need him to shine. It was an age in which blood meant less and less with Mudbloods clamoring into wizarding society like they actually belonged there, claiming even high-level Ministry positions as their own. And though she did not want to admit, the Blacks, like many wizarding families of the time, were in decline. Where were the Merga Capellas who had ruled the Ministry with an iron fist or the Antares Castors who had led the largest Muggle-hunting crusade of the past three centuries? Too many of the generation were weak and there was nothing she despised so much as weakness. She was determined that Sirius would be anything but that. In that she supposed, she had succeeded.

From the beginning, she had ordered for the baby to be kept out of her sight and hearing, but even so, he was in her way far too much of him for her liking. He cried too loudly, and laughed too much. When he stared at her, he would give a smile and seemed to expect one in return, as though the stupid creature believed that his mother actually liked him. It had not taken her long to cure him of _that _belief. As he got older, he made mischief and broke family heirlooms and turned her pleasantly quiet home into a boisterous playground. He was incorrigible: nothing she said or did (and she could be harsh) had much of an effect on him for long, and though he feared her as the rest of the family did, he had a boldness the rest of them lacked.

_Give him a brother and he'll calm down, _everyone told her, and she decided to try it, in part to have a backup in case Sirius' nerve landed him in Azkaban or something if he decided to become the next Antares Castor.

The next child was everything she had wanted in the first. He was quiet and reserved, content to look rather than touch and he thought before he acted. Regulus would never set fire to the carpet or ask _why _when she told him something. He yearned for her approval only a little less than his elder brother, and perhaps that was why he had better success.

Yes, she remembered a time when Sirius was just as eager to please as his little brother – more so because it had seemed to him that he could never succeed. Each attempt was more impressive than the last, so much that Walburga had been almost certain that this time, the Blacks would have a worthy heir to continue the legacy of her noble ancestors. His mastery of spells and jinxes even before he had gone to school were light-years ahead of his peers and he possessed a fire that – no matter how much she tried to overlook it – Regulus noticeably lacked.

Yet, she had never given any indication of the approval Sirius desperately sought and had instead bestowed all the appearance of affection upon the younger of her two sons, with the intention of continuing to spur the elder to greater heights. It had worked at first…and then slowed…and then stopped altogether. She should have seen it really. Though Walburga did not feel emotions, she could recognize them. She had seen the hope and hunger and envy fade from his eyes when she praised his brother and she no longer caught him struggling to read books on the Dark Arts in his spare time. He had never been able to hide from her his disgraceful lack of interest in the topic, but he had tried, and then rejected them altogether when he believed there was no longer any hope of trying to win his mother's approval.

It wasn't that she didn't approve, but she had expected more out of him. He was the heir, the one who would outshine them all. He had to be strong if he wanted to be great one day, and even if right now, all he wanted to do was make as much trouble as possible, _she _wanted him to be great and _she _always got what she wanted.

And then he had gone to Hogwarts -_ Gryffindor, the shame of it!_ - and whatever remnants of the promising heir that had been was gone, replaced completely by the mischievous daredevil that she had never been able to completely repress.

She had given him another chance today - his very last - and he had thrown it back in her face. There was a time he would have done anything for her love but not anymore. This time, he loved mudbloods and blood traitors more than his own family and the future of the pure-blood families all across England. He had rejected the chance to join the Death Eaters and run away. She would have liked to have the satisfaction of throwing him out.

Regulus would join the Death Eaters. He would lead the effort to purify the wizarding race.

Staring at the age-old tapestry that bore the names of all her illustrious ancestors, her gaze shifted to the burnt scab that had once been her eldest son. No longer. Sirius was no son of hers.


End file.
